


Orison

by aeli_kindara



Series: Supernatural Codas [23]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Canon Universe, Canonical Character Death, Coda, Dean Winchester Prays to Castiel, Episode Tag, Episode: s15e19 Inherit the Earth, Grief/Mourning, Love Confessions, M/M, Season/Series 15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27603221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: Cas says,I love you.And then he’s gone and Dean’s alone, gasping sobs of air on the dungeon floor, and wishing he hadn’t. Listened. Wishing he could take it all back. Wishing he could justrefuse,just keep Cas, if only for another instant, if only for long enough to stop thinking,What do you mean — what do you mean, something you know you can’t have?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Supernatural Codas [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/877383
Comments: 160
Kudos: 551
Collections: The Destiel Fan Survey Favs Collection





	Orison

**Author's Note:**

> Not a fix-it; moving Dean through the events of 15.19 via his imagined reunions with Cas.
> 
> Warnings for some brief canon-typical suicidal ideation, alcohol abuse, and a fantasy involving mildly dubious consent.

#### (1.)

The thing Dean tries to do is: listen.

_Happiness isn’t in the having. It’s in just — being. It’s in just saying it,_ Cas tells him, and Dean’s whole heart is screaming, _No,_ but he shuts his mouth. He listens. He listens like his life fucking depends on it, which it does, in more ways than one.

_Everything you have ever done,_ Cas says, _the good and the bad, you have done for love._

_You changed me, Dean,_ Cas says.

Cas says, _I love you._

And then he’s gone and Dean’s alone, gasping sobs of air on the dungeon floor, and wishing he hadn’t. Listened. Wishing he could take it all back. Wishing he could just _refuse,_ just keep Cas, if only for another instant, if only for long enough to stop thinking, _What do you mean — what do you mean, something you know you can’t have?_

\---

After a while, he realizes that the buzzing of his phone has stopped.

He looks down, fumbles to turn on the screen. Only a few minutes have passed. It feels like an hour, like a century. His brain feels outside of his head.

_Everyone’s gone,_ Sam texted. _Not just the refugees. Donna too._

Sam texted, _Dean pick up your fucking phone._

Just as he reads it, his screen changes again. _Incoming Call. Sam._

It vibrates against his palm, and he drops it reflexively, pushing himself back against the wall. The toe of his boot knocks it away. It clatters halfway across the room and lands in one point of the Devil’s Trap, then sits there, buzzing, _rattling,_ loud on the cement floor.

A deafening eternity later, it stops.

Dean gasps in a breath, another. He squeezes his eyes shut.

Then he stands up and crosses the room. He picks up his phone. He texts Sam, _On my way._

\---

He learns quickly that he can’t take the freeway. He tries to get on I-80 west of Lincoln, but gives up a few miles later. The highway’s a maze, two- and three- and four-car pile-ups, jack-knifed semi trailers blocking both lanes. A couple times he has to off-road it across the median, switch to the oncoming lanes for a while, which makes him twitchy even though it doesn’t seem like anyone in the world is left to run into.

So he gets off at the next exit and heads north. State highway 93B, the signs say; he doesn’t know it. There are still obstacles to get around — pickups in ditches, one with a wheel still spinning freely in the air — but it’s mostly clear.

\---

_If everyone’s gone,_ a tiny voice keeps whispering in his brain, _then maybe we can bring everyone back._

It isn’t logical. Not really. But it’s — well, this is bigger than him. Maybe it’s like that time Jack made the world stop lying, and then Chuck set it right.

Maybe they can convince Chuck to set this right too. Somehow. Maybe Amara’s still in there; maybe she’ll hear reason. Maybe — if Dean offers to sacrifice himself, if they give Chuck the ending he’s always wanted —

Getting Cas back would be worth that. Getting everyone back. Even if Dean wasn’t around to say — to say —

What the hell would he say?

_Don’t do that again._

No. He’d have to do better than that.

He’s getting onto roads that are little-used even in the best of times; he hasn’t had to negotiate a a car wreck in miles. He leans on Baby’s gas a little — opens her up. He lets his mind wander. He lets himself dream.

\---

_When they get back to the bunker, Cas is there._

_“Dean.” His voice is like warm gravel. It freezes Dean at the top of the stairs._

_Then he rushes down them. “Cas. How the hell are — how are you here?”_

_Cas smiles. “Well, you know — I have some experience annoying the Empty.”_

_Dean pulls him into a hug._

_He draws back a minute later. He’s gripping Cas’s shoulders tight with his hands. “Cas,” he says, “you gotta know, man. I l— I l-love —”_

\---

_Shit._

Dean pounds his fist against his thigh, hard enough to leave an ache; then against the steering wheel. He sounds like a fucking idiot. What’s he gonna say? _I love you too?_

It might be true, but what the fuck does that matter? What does it even _mean?_ _Yeah, Cas, let’s move in together and call each other sweetie and adopt a flock of nephilim babies._ That’s not even what Cas meant. It’s certainly not what Cas meant.

_Something I can’t have —_ that’s what he said.

Well, he’s right that he can’t have it. Dean’s not built for that. He tried with Lisa, nearly killed himself trying, then nearly killed her and Ben too. He’s not — he’s not built for loving people, not without hurting them —

Cas said he was, though. Cas said Dean was the most loving person he’d ever met.

A shudder rocks through him; the root of another sob. He presses a fist against his mouth; bites down on a knuckle to stifle it. His eyes sting. Cas was wrong.

Dean’s not loving, not any kind of loving; he can’t even look love in the eye. Cas said _I love you_ and Dean said _don’t do this_ and what does that say about him, huh? Cas was _wrong._

It feels like several minutes before the howling panic inside him subsides enough to drop his hand. There are teeth marks around the joint of his finger, white and bloodless; when he flexes it, they flush red. He’s still driving straight down an alley of barbed wire. He’s not sure he remembers the last few miles.

The sky is blue and cloudless; the prettiest day you could ask for. Anyone should be here to enjoy it. Anyone but him.

\---

Crossing the Missouri River nearly defeats him. The first bridge he tries is piled up with cars — some of them hanging through the railings. So is the second. It’s the third, near Vermilion, that finally offers a path through.

He has to park the Impala. Walk across the bridge and back again, taking stock; there’s a Tahoe and a Corolla that T-boned somehow, but the Tahoe’s in pretty good shape, and it’s got enough horsepower that when he puts the Corolla in neutral he’s able to kind of shuffle it along, bouncing off the barriers. The minivan at the end of the bridge has half its undercarriage hanging off, but it starts, somehow; Dean rolls it off onto the grass and then jumps out pretty quick when he realizes he’s got no brakes.

Walking back, at the middle of the bridge, he has to stop for a moment and close his eyes. His lungs feel tight; they can’t expand. The river is bright in the sun.

Maybe he hasn’t believed he’s actually gonna make it. Not until now. He’s going to see Sam and Jack. He’ll have to tell them that Cas is gone. How the fuck is he supposed to do that?

\---

He practices the words for the rest of the drive.

His voice still doesn’t sound like his own when he says it. _Billie was coming after us, and Cas summoned the Empty. It took her. And it took him._

They don’t ask any more questions. He almost wishes they would.

#### (2.)

Hastings is empty. Sam and Jack have already done a sweep, they tell him: door to door, knocking, shouting — even busting in. They’ve found baths still running, empty bird cages, dinner plates shattered on the floor. But no one living. No one at all.

Still, something in them won’t stop moving, won’t stop trying. Dean slips into stride. Hammers on doors and peers through windows. Again and again, they dial Jody. Claire. Garth.

They wind up in an empty bar. One of the taps is still running. The TV shows an empty football stadium. Dean pours himself a beer, because why not; because it’s free.

_I did this,_ Sam says. _We could have just given Chuck what he wanted. We tried to rewrite him, and the whole world paid the price._

Jack looks at him like he just punched a kitten. _You can’t just give up._

_What other choice do we have?_ Sam shouts.

But Dean’s been thinking about it. He’s been thinking about it the whole drive, really; it wouldn’t be too much to ask. Not for him. Maybe not for Sam.

“We can give him what he wants.”

It’s selfish, but he kinda hopes it’s Sam killing him, and not the other way around.

\---

They drop Jack at home before they make the offer. Dean’s tried to murder the kid a time too many at Chuck’s prompting; that’s where he’s gonna draw the line.

“I’ll kill Sam, Sam’ll kill me, we’ll kill each other,” he tells Chuck. “Okay? You pick. But first — you gotta put everything back the way it was. The people, the birds — Cas. You gotta bring him back.”

Cas would live a good life without Dean. A better one — he’d realize that eventually. He’d have Jack; they’d have the run of the bunker. The two of them could be happy. Maybe Sam could even be there, and Eileen —

It doesn’t matter. Chuck says no.

\---

Dean gets home and dives into a bottle. Then another, and another; the whole world’s liquor supply is theirs now. There’s no reason to hold back. Chuck’s not gonna let him die of a bum liver, he doesn’t think, but hell; why not find out.

If Cas is gone — if Cas is gone for good — then why the hell shouldn’t Dean live in a dream of getting him back?

\---

_Cas on the stairs. Cas in the hallway, outside Dean’s room; real and there and solid, startled eyebrows and faint annoyance around his mouth, but that’s okay, Dean can annoy him. Because he — he loves Dean. Dean can annoy him all he wants, and Cas won’t ever leave._

_“You’re not annoying me,” says Cas. He catches Dean’s hip when Dean lurches nearly into him; Dean wants to sing praises to his hand. “You’re worrying me. You’re drunk.”_

_“Don’ be worried.” Dean plants a hand on Cas’s chest; stares for a moment at his eyes. They’re very blue. “You — you’re — beau-tiful. Even when you’re annoyed.”_

_Cas sighs. It makes his mouth look kind of unhappy, which is worse than annoyed, and Dean wants to fix it, so he kisses him._

_He misses, a little; his mouth lands on the corner of Cas’s. But Cas’s mouth feels awesome; the startled, pleased little intake of his breath, the way his hands rise to Dean’s ribs. He’s pushing him back, though, gently, shaking his head._

_“Cas,” says Dean, “please —”_

_Cas’s grip falters. Dean takes advantage of the moment to drop his face to Cas’s neck; to kiss Cas’s skin._

_Cas groans; his ribcage arches. But his fingers tighten again._

_“All right,” he’s saying, “you need to get to bed.”_

_Bed. Yeah. Dean’s into that. He’s not sure he can get it up — he’s had a_ lot _to drink — but that’s okay. He can take care of Cas. That’ll be great._

_Cas is moving him, manhandling him, over the threshold. Closing the door. Parking Dean on the edge of the mattress and dropping to one knee to take off his boots. Then his jeans. Dean makes a sound that might be a giggle, one he’ll never admit in the morning._

_When Cas gets his flannel off, though, he doesn’t keep going. He lifts Dean up again, gently, looping Dean’s arm over his shoulders, and pulls back the covers. He levers Dean’s legs into bed._

_“Wait,” says Dean, when Cas turns to go. His eyes are stinging. He doesn’t want to be here alone. “Wait — Cas —”_

_Cas sighs when Dean’s hand catches around the fine bones of his wrist. He turns, though, and his eyes look fond._

_“I’ll watch over you,” he says. “But that’s all, all right? For now.”_

_Dean pats the sheets. “Watch over me_ here.”

_Cas looks at him for a moment._

_Then he sighs again and lowers himself to the bed._

_He doesn’t shed his trenchcoat; he doesn’t get under the covers. But his arm loops around Dean’s chest, and his nose tucks into the back of Dean’s neck, and Dean falls asleep feeling safe; feeling warm. Feeling loved._

\---

He wakes up with a splitting headache. He isn’t in his bed; Cas isn’t wrapped around him. He’s on the bunker library floor, and Cas is dead.

Sam is watching him — judging him. Dean levers himself back into his chair.

“Guys,” says Jack, “I’m — feeling something weird.”

“Yeah, me too, pal.” Dean massages his temples. “We need aspirin.”

Jack ignores him. “I’m sensing a presence. There’s something — out there. Besides us.”

Dean’s heart beats a little faster.

He doesn’t say anything. They’ll shoot him down. It makes no sense. But if Cas talked his way out of the Empty before —

Dean takes the wheel over Sam’s protestations. Sam’s wrong; he isn’t still drunk. He’s just — well, he feels loose. Almost giddy. He feels like anything could happen. After all, what more do they have to lose?

\---

They find a dog. Then they have something to lose.

They lose it.

What if Cas gets back — only for Chuck to snap him out of existence again? What if it’s all one more cruel joke, designed to knock Dean lower and lower still?

If he gets Cas back, he has to use whatever time he’s got. He has to use it well. He can’t push it away and pretend it never happened.

But he can’t — he can’t say things he’s not ready to say either.

He envisions Cas waiting for them inside the church. He envisions thunder crashing as Cas turns to face them; maybe he’s changed. Maybe he’s — something else now. Otherworldly.

It doesn’t matter. Dean will pull him into a tight hug. He’ll say, _I’m so glad to have you back, man. We gotta talk. But for now — I’m so glad to have you back._

It isn’t Cas.

#### (3.)

A thing Dean tries to do is: pay attention to his own gut.

Certainty is settling there, low and leaden. The whole drive home, he cradles it, sags under it. He thinks about putting a cassette on, turning up the volume so no one will try to make him talk — but the car’s already quiet. Michael’s presence seems to make the air heavier, too heavy for speech.

They stop halfway home to gas up at a truck stop, and Dean ducks into the empty convenience store to find something with caffeine. There’s pop music playing, still, over tinny speakers. _And if you think that I’m still holding onto something, you should go and love yourself._

He turns toward the counter by habit and has a sudden flash of Cas standing there. Blue vest, blue eyes, wide and friendly — turning guarded when he sees Dean.

Dean closes his eyes. Clenches his jaw. Goddamnit, the number of things he’d do different, if he only had the chance —

No. It’s no use dwelling on that.

Cas wouldn’t want him to dwell. Cas would want him to — see himself like Cas did. _Caring, loving._ Whatever. Something like that.

He bites down on his lower lip. He can’t quite make himself believe it. But he can — he can stop telling himself it’s _not_ true. That much he can do.

\---

Back at the bunker, he sits with Sam on the kitchen steps. Another round of _so what nows;_ the whole thing feels tired.

“Where does it leave us? Screwed,” Dean tells him. “I’m sure Chuck’s ready to make a move.”

In his pocket, his phone starts to ring.

Reaching for it is automatic. A non-event. He doesn’t even think about how the four known living people in the universe are all right here in this bunker; his mind doesn’t stutter over questions of _Jody_ or _Donna_ or _Garth._

For a moment, seeing Cas’s name on his screen feels like the most ordinary thing in the world.

Then his heart ping-pongs into his throat. It isn’t true. It can’t be true — just some sick joke.

He hits the arrow to accept the call. “Cas?”

And it’s him. “Dean. I’m here. I’m — hurt. Can you let me in?”

\---

Dean’s spent pretty much his whole life fighting things that can seem like other people.

Shifters. Demons. Hell, hallucinations. There isn’t a person he loves he hasn’t seen with something alien puppeting their body — something evil. He’s been testing his own damn family since he was practically a kid with holy water and silver.

Somehow, that shit all goes out the window.

He’s on his feet and he’s running — knees popping, protesting. He’s taking the stairs two at the time. He’s preparing himself for whatever’s outside that door — for Cas’s face broken and bleeding. For Cas with black goo oozing out of him, for any Cas, any Cas at all — any Cas he can catch in his arms and say, _Hey, hey. It’s all right now. I’ve got you. You’re home._

He opens the door.

\---

Later — much later, after Lucifer’s gone and the death book is open and Sam is constructing his ruse — Dean lets himself think about it again.

How it felt, in that moment, before the shock of betrayal. Like _Thank you._ _Thank you, thank you, thank you._ He’s stopped saying _Thank God._

If Jack is right, though, about what he’s becoming — if Sam’s right about what it means — then maybe, soon, _God_ won’t feel like a dirty word.

Jack thinks he can undo what Chuck did. He thinks he can absorb Chuck’s power, weaken him completely — turn him human. He thinks he can bring everyone back.

Dean hasn’t asked yet what _everyone_ means. If _everyone_ includes Cas.

#### (4.)

It’s got to include Cas. That’s what Dean keeps thinking, the whole drive north and west. Cas is Jack’s dad — as good as, anyway. Cas is the one Jack chose, when he hadn’t even been born yet; shit, the kid even made himself look kind of like Cas.

If Chuck can pull Lucifer and Lilith out of the Empty, then Jack — God-powered Jack — could do the same.

The highways out west are easier to drive; they weren’t as busy even in the best of times. Baby passes through wide wind-swept plains and dense spruce forests. Sunlit peaks, still snow-capped even in the depths of summer, tower over the road. Dean catches Jack gazing out the window, admiring, a soft look of joy in his eyes.

_He’s gonna bring him back. He’s got to._

There are so many questions standing between then and now. Will Sam’s spell work; will it lure Chuck in. Are they right about Michael playing traitor. Can they get Chuck to release enough power for Jack to absorb, and will they even survive the experience.

If they do, though — if they do —

\---

_It doesn’t take them as long to get back to the bunker, now that the roads are clear. Every time they pass another car, Dean wants to tap his horn in recognition, in celebration — hey, you’re alive! And we are too!_

_When they open the door, Cas is waiting._

_He’s standing next to the war room table, trench coat rumpled, blue tie askew. When he turns his face up to greet them, he looks shy and a little overwhelmed — like he used to all the time, back before he really understood humans._

_“Cas,” Dean says, and drops his bag on the stairs._

_He gets down them just as fast as he got up them when he thought Cas was at the door. He pulls Cas into a hug, arms tight around his shoulders. He buries his face in the collar of Cas’s coat. And he doesn’t let go. He just doesn’t let go._

\---

The water shimmers blue-green under the sun.

Driftwood rocks against the shoreline. Dean and Sam’s blood stains the sand.

Jack’s eyes turn gold — the purest gold Dean thinks he’s ever seen.

_Dean Winchester. The ultimate killer,_ Chuck calls him, and Dean says, _That’s not who I am._

They leave Chuck there, weeping and powerless. In the wreckage of his story. In the beauty of the world he made.

\---

It’s at the first gas stop on the way home that Dean pulls Jack aside to ask.

Victory is fizzing under his ribs. “Hey,” he says, “Sam — you gas her up, okay? The kid and I are gonna raid the candy aisle. Perks of living on a lonely planet — gotta enjoy them while we can.”

The door’s got a bell hanging on a string against its glass. It jingles when Dean ushers Jack inside. It smells sticky-sweet in here; there’s a spilled slushee on the floor by the drink machine.

“There you go.” Dean gestures expansively at the rack of candy bars. “World’s your oyster.”

Jack squints down at them. Then he looks back up at Dean.

“What did you want to ask me?”

His voice is gentle, but there’s a weight to it that freezes Dean where he stands. It’s easy to forget the kid isn’t just the kid now. He’s — something else. He’s a whole lot more.

Dean clears his throat. He looks away; at the hot dogs still turning gently on their rollers. So much of his history with Cas is written in gas stations, convenience stores, laundromats. Parking lots. Shitty motel rooms. The open road.

“Listen, Jack, uh. When you do the — when you bring everyone back.”

Jack puts a hand on his shoulder.

When Dean turns to look at him, his eyebrows are knit together in sympathy. “I can’t resurrect Castiel.”

There it is. That simply.

Dean’s throat feels rough; he thought he was ready for this. He thought he was ready. “Do you —” he starts. “I mean, have you tried?”

The kid’s shoulders hunch, and he drops his hand. “I just — it’s hard to explain. He has — another fate. I’m sorry.”

The awful pit is opening again in Dean’s stomach. Dread; refusal. He needs to move, do something — he can’t let himself fall into it. He needs to lash out.

No. No, not against Jack.

He closes his eyes and lets himself feel it. The grief.

Cas isn’t waiting at home in the bunker. He won’t appear suddenly around some corner, among the trees. He isn’t going to step into Dean’s dreams or into Dean’s bedroom; his name isn’t going to pop up on Dean’s phone. Cas loves him, and Cas died for him, and that’s what it is. Forever.

“You know,” says Jack, in a very small voice, “I still don’t understand. There are things I thought — I thought I’d just _know_ things, when I got to be like this, and I know a lot of things, but some things I still don’t.”

Dean’s chest rises and falls. Rises and falls. Cas is gone.

He doesn’t scream at Jack. He asks, “Like what?”

“His deal.” Dean opens his eyes, and Jack is looking at him. “I still don’t understand what made him happy. I don’t _get it.”_

Of course the kid knew.

Dean’s an idiot for not thinking of that earlier. Cas’s deal was to save Jack’s life; he must have been there. He must have heard the whole thing. He must have been carrying this, for months — for _years_ now. It must have hurt.

“He told me he loved me,” Dean says.

His voice comes out gruff. There are tears in his eyes. His chest hurts, but it’s singing, too; singing with some emotion he can’t name.

“Oh,” Jack says softly.

Dean braces himself for the next question. The obvious one. _Did you say it back? Did you love him too?_

Jack doesn’t ask it, though. He just starts selecting candy bars. He inspects their wrappers and smiles.

#### (5.)

Dean lets himself daydream, though, on the way back to Hastings. Just one more time.

_Cas is beside him in Baby’s front seat. They aren’t driving; Dean doesn’t want his attention torn. They’re sitting in a parking lot near the lake, and there are kids playing on swingsets; there are willow branches waving in a breeze._

_“Do you remember that town you saved?” Cas asks him. “All those years ago?”_

_That makes Dean chuckle. “Yeah. You guys were gonna nuke it off the earth.”_

_Cas shrugs, and Dean almost thinks he hears the rustle of wings. “We didn’t.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_He thinks about Cas’s face that day, taut, eyes squinting against the sun. He thinks about his own dark, snarled mind; the tension screaming in every one of his nerves, every muscle fiber, the joints in his hand. Memories of Hell._

_He thinks of Cas, knowing and not saying. Of Cas looking at him like he mattered._

_“Listen, I — we’re gonna bring them back. All of them.”_

_Cas’s eyes look fond. “I know.”_

_“Not you, though.” Dean’s chest aches._

_“I know.”_

_“So I gotta — I gotta say this now. I’m gonna look after them. Jack. And Sam. I’m not gonna — I won’t let this take me away, okay? Not like it took my dad. Losing you — I won’t let it turn me into an asshole. I swear.”_

_On the seat between them, Cas extends his hand._

_Dean looks down. Cas’s open palm, his long fingers. He’s had that handprint burned in his skin and bloody on the shoulder of his jacket. He’s felt Cas’s hands on him a thousand times — healing him. Checking him for injury. Helping him along. Even just touching him, quiet moments in the bunker, for no reason but the intimacy of moving around tables, past chairs._

_Cas’s hands have beaten him bloody and have made him whole. Have sent him tearing through the fabric of time and space. Cas’s hands have held tight to Dean’s, and they’ve slipped from his grasp._

_He reaches out and laces their fingers. It feels all right. It doesn’t feel as scary as he might’ve thought._

_“I wanna say it back,” he blurts. “I want to. It’d be true. I just —”_

_Cas squeezes his hand. “It’s all right, Dean.”_

_“— I just never said it like that before, you know? Like — like I wanna spend the rest of my life with you. Like you’re my best friend, and I — every second I’m with you is better than every second I’m not. Like I want to have sex with you — I mean, if — and I want to grow fucking_ old _with you, like some — Jesus.”_

_He doesn’t dare glance up and see what look Cas is giving him. He keeps his eyes fixed on their joined hands._

_“And I mean, I dunno — I dunno what exactly you think you want but can’t have. But you can have everything. You’re — everything, Cas. Okay?”_

_For a long, long moment, Cas doesn’t answer._

_Then he frees his hand. Gently; he presses a thumb to Dean’s knuckles before he lets go. Before Dean can feel miserable at the loss, though, Cas touches his face instead._

_Fingers under his chin, lifting it. Reluctantly, Dean meets Cas’s eyes._

_“Do you remember, once,” Cas asks him, “you told me I suck at goodbyes?”_

_Dean chuckles against his will. “Yeah, well. You got better.”_

_“Thank you, Dean.”_

_Cas touches his mouth. The still-laughing curve of it._

_And he’s gone._

#### (6.)

A thing Dean tries to do is heal.

It’s a new one for him. It throws him for loops, sometimes; it throws him for loops every damn day. The first one comes when Jack says he isn’t coming home. That he’ll be in the rain or whatever. That it’s just gonna be Sam and Dean.

The second one is when they walk in the bunker and Cas isn’t waiting, just like Dean knew he wouldn’t be waiting, but somehow, still, it hits him like a fist to the gut.

Cas is _here,_ though. That’s what Dean realizes, as he moves around the bunker. Not like rain; like a person. Cas is here in the books he left out and his careful writing on the labels of the store room shelves. He’s here in the collection of Crunch Cookie Crunch decoder rings in his dresser drawer.

He’s here in everything that happened to them, really — in the family they built. In the fact that they ever lived to have a place called home.

“We should add them,” he tells Sam one day. “To the table. Cas and Jack.”

Sam’s surprise lasts only half a second. Then he says, “Yeah. Yeah, we should.”

With the knife in his hand, though, Dean hesitates. What should he carve? _CW,_ for Winchester? Just _Cas?_

He thinks about standing in the blue light of a vending machine. About looking up toward dim, streetlamp-hazed heavens. About spreading his arms and closing his eyes.

He can feel Sam watching him as he scratches out the _C._ Then the _A,_ then the _S,_ then the _T,_ and Sam makes a small noise in his throat.

_I hope you’re doing okay, wherever you are,_ Dean thinks. _I don’t know if you can still hear this. Probably not. But Jack said you had a different fate, so — I dunno, maybe._

The shapes of the letters are done. He goes over them again, deeper. Scoring them into the wood.

_Maybe I’ll see you again someday. After all this, I mean. Or I won’t._

Sam starts in on Jack’s name. He follows Dean’s lead: four letters, no initial.

_Cas. Castiel._ Dean runs his fingers over his handiwork to wipe away sawdust; then again, just to feel the shapes.

He can already imagine himself doing this again and again, over the years; touching his fingertips to Cas’s name. Sharing a story about Claire, or about Sam and Eileen. Complaining about a hunt that went shitty. Just saying thanks.

_Cas. You changed me too, you know._

It feels like the right kind of prayer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Here's a [tumblr link](https://gravelghosts.tumblr.com/post/635123042305048576/orison-5k-t-deancas-1519-coda-deans) if that's your jam.


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